


The Cleaners

by Usedtobehmc



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Blood, Gun Violence, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 19:41:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18350384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Usedtobehmc/pseuds/Usedtobehmc
Summary: The mercs have to fight for their lives in the middle of the night.  Someone isn’t playing war games anymore.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ratings and tags will change in coming chapters

 

Scrambling, clawing, and gasping for air they tucked themselves into a secluded corner in an out-of-the-way supply room to buy themselves a few minutes. Spy had only his revolver and Sniper had managed to grab his kukri in the mad dash to defend themselves against the intruders that flooded their base in the middle of the night like well-organized termites.

 

It happened fast, and it was brutal.

  
Sniper’s eyes looked wild and feral like a cornered animal even in the minimal light that shone into the room from under the closed door. He pulled Spy’s arm to insinuate him further behind the shelving unit and more out of the line of sight to the one exit.

  
Spy’s breathing was hard but controlled. He set his revolver down to pull up his undershirt, sticky with sweat and a fair amount of dark blood.

  
“How is it?” Sniper whispered, never removing his eyes from the door. In the distance, gunshots.

  
“Deep,” Spy replied.

  
“You’ve had worse.”

  
“Yes.”  Technically true, though context was everything.  

  
“Keep your gun up,” Sniper admonished gently. “Cleaning crew. Guess our contracts are up.”

  
“Three men for every one of us. If I had to guess.” Spy leaned a little heavier on the shelves.  

  
“At least—” Sniper tensed, a hand on Spy’s shoulder silencing their communication. “Gimme your gun.”

  
At that moment, the door slammed open and flooded their hiding place with light and chaotic noise. Sniper bolted to his feet and quickly put a bullet between the eyes of the one with the battering ram with near surgical precision.  He stepped away from the shelf to cover the doorway with three more bullets and three more headshots. The threat of running out of ammo was preempted by a familiar voice outside the room.

  
“Sniper? Is that you?”

  
“Pauling, you’d better stay out of sight unless you want to be the next one with an extra hole in the head!” Sniper barked back, never lowering the gun. He kept his stance steady and firm, as if he wasn’t in only pajama pants and bare feet.

  
Spy kept his mouth shut and tried to keep his breathing steady. His only defense was to stay hidden.  He was unarmed and barely dressed (an undershirt and boxer shorts, how undignified) with a gaping hole in his abdomen.  He didn’t have a chance in this fight and would make the whole thing worse if he made a sound.

 

“That sounds like Spy’s gun. Where is he?” She sounded too calm, too sure. It filled Spy’s heart with the most imposing sort of dread.

  
“I wouldn’t know, I took this off one of your bloody goons after I spilled his guts on the floor with a big **_fuckin’_ ** knife.”

  
“Put the gun down and let’s talk, Sniper. No one else has to die tonight. My men had instructions to take everyone alive. Trust me, you don’t have the whole story.”

  
Sniper cursed under his breath, casting a brief glance at where Spy huddled hidden in the corner.  The gentle rise and fall of his shoulders was a small comfort in the face of what would happen without help soon.  “We were friends, Pauling.”

  
Outside the door, a soft sigh permeated the air.

  
Spy made eye contact with Sniper and signaled him by twirling his index finger briefly towards the sky. _She’s alone._

 

“Mercenaries don’t have friends, Sniper.”

  
Sniper picked a point on the wall: one foot left of the door jamb, and about five feet off the floor. He fired twice through the wall, rushing the door with the now-empty gun. Spy had no time to say anything or to stop him before he was out of his line of sight.  There was a mad flurry of activity following Pauling’s short, sharp cry of pain: the scuffling of more than four pairs of feet, punches landing on flesh and drywall, Sniper’s animalistic snarling and cursing. There was a single gunshot and Sniper was roaring, clearly injured.  The sounds of fighting suddenly ended.

 

Spy’s hand crept across the floor and his fingers curled around the handle of Sniper’s forgotten kukri.  He swallowed hard and slowed his breathing even further, hoping for absolute silence. The wound in his stomach throbbed, sending hot slicks of fresh blood down his fingers with terrifying frequency.  

 

He was wrong.  He'd made a judgement call and told Sniper that Pauling was alone when she actually had more than enough backup.  He'd fucked up.

 

He'd really, _really_ fucked all the way up. 

 

Through the clutter of the storage room, he could see out the door as a few surviving goons dragged Sniper past.  Spy could not see where he was shot, but blood covered his bare torso and had begun to soak the cotton pajama pants.

 

Pauling quickly passed by the light of the door, holding a palm tight to her forehead.  There was blood, but it was clearly just a graze. She’d been extremely lucky that the bullet had spared her life by a few millimeters.  In her other hand was a pistol that Spy would bet was still warm from firing.

 

Spy shook his head: Sniper had managed to rattle them so hard that they’d neglected to search the room after his apprehension.  A misstep that they would barely live to regret, if Spy had anything to say in the matter.

 

“Rendez-vous at Bravo Base,” came Pauling’s voice from down the hallway.  “I’m going to need a head count and verification…”

 

Spy slumped hard against the shelves, gravity pulling his body closer to the floor as the minutes passed.  How many of them were dead? It was too risky to leave the room until morning anyway… and he was so tired…

  
  
  
  
  
  
TBC   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  



	2. Illustration

Sniper defends Spy by taking charge of the situation and drawing all attention on himself


End file.
